For Those About to Rock…You’ll Need These. Chris Mooney has a round-up of ‘Rock Stars of Science’. I’ve been meaning to talk about this, as Chris gave me a heads up, but I’ve been kind of busy with other things. But better late than never. I have some of the same concerns as the nay-sayers. Is this really necessary? The campaign strikes me as kind of cheesy and ill-thought out. But the critical thing to focus on is that it isn’t about me, it’s about the efficacy of this sort of thing in furthering the ends of science. I’m not convinced that this will help, but I’m skeptical that this will hurt. Therefore though my personal gut response is consonant with the reaction of those who think this strikes a false note, I can acknowledge that I’m not the typical person on the street. Additionally, many marketing campaigns work through implicit associations, and this might get the job done on that level and shatter some old associations. The target audience is presumably the type of person who’ll never encounter PV = nRT or doesn’t know that acceleration is the derivative of velocity with respect to time. Both cool concepts, but total gibberish to the masses. Science is a cultural enterprise which needs institutional support, and I am not going to judge these sorts of campaigns on my personal reaction. Rather, I’ll be interested in whether these campaigns reduce or elevate the image of science as an enterprise in the eyes of the public. For that, there needs to be some social science! More marketing as science, and less as art, in the interests of science!

Smart Republicans, Stupid Democrats. Apparently the trend started in 1994, where “Red States” were net debtors to the public fisc. I still want to see more data on the possibility that the transfer of monies is from Republicans in the Upper East Side to Democrats in North Dakota, though I’m open to anything.

Adam’s Ancestors: Race, Religion and the Politics of Human Origins. John Lynch reviews a book on the history of polygenism. Though I’m willing to cop the role of secular progressive intellectuals in forwarding ideas which we’d perceive as very illiberal and objectionable today (e.g., H. G. Wells contention that the colored races would have to go extinct because it was the law of nature that the strong should supersede the weak), it is always interesting to me how Christians of a given age are strongly shaped by the secular currents of thought. So Southern promoters of slavery who were Christian believers integrated polygenism into their ideology, whereas Christian abolitionists were explicit monogenists. Though many Christians opposed eugenics, man advocated eugenics. And so forth.

The ‘Give Me a Job’ Microbe. The biographical backstory of the ‘arsenic bacteria.’ “At the workshop, Felisa came up with the most incisive suggestion: Maybe there is a life form that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus (they are chemically similar) in its organic structure. The participants were intrigued but not convinced.” Well, obviously the lead researcher here is an opportunist, but I don’t say that as an insult. I’m relatively skeptical of the findings, and I do not feel that most of the press covered itself in glory, but I have to admit some grudging admiration of the boldness of Felisa Wolfe-Simon. There’s a lot of self-serving bullshit politics in science, like any human enterprise, and least she took a stab at something that was high risk-high yield. On the other hand I’m getting tired of NASA’s over-hyping of these microbial findings with hyperbolic press conferences. If they do this a third time I’m going to be really pissed. Not that they care…but I vote!

Autism and Old Fathers. Many people assume that fathers contributed a disproportionate amount of the mutational load to their offspring because of the errors in the replication of sperm over their lives. This would seem to support that general finding.

12 Common Misperceptions About Book Publishing. “But most authors who rely on writing as their primary means of support are poor indeed. Authorship, like it or not, is a form of celebrity, and we live in a winner-take-all society with very few winners.” Not too surprising. Reminds me of something else….

Attacks on Immigrants on the Rise in Greece. Social phenomena you’d expect in light of the stresses which Greece, and other European nations, are going through. Generosity and liberality flourish in circumstances where want and deprivation are not on the horizon. This is why liberals should be very careful when talking about ‘sustainability.’ If it sacrifices ‘blue skies’ then the vistas become dark.

Deborah Solomon Hates It When (Other) People Ask Stupid Questions. People like Deborah Solomon give the media a really bad name. How does she keep her job? If any blogger or regular person pulled the crap she did with her interviews it would no doubt reflect badly on the ethics of that individual. But The New York Times keeps her around. I don’t re-edit my “10 Questions” in case you’re curious.

Indian State Empowers Poor to Fight Corruption. One of the things my family hated about Bangladesh was the corruption. Those who caved to the corrupt norms have flourished. Those who refused have not, or had to flee to the West or the Middle East.

Euro Zone Is Imperiled by North-South Divide. Europe did OK under the Roman Empire, but then there was some explicit and concerted coordination at the center. As it is, the Brusselsocracy seems to only be in a position to annoy and harass, rather than enable a real integration.

Timing and dynamics of Late Pleistocene mammal extinctions in southwestern Australia. “We conclude that the arrival of humans was probably decisive in the southwestern Australian extinctions, but that changes in climate and fire activity may have played facilitating roles. One-factor explanations for the Pleistocene extinctions in Australia are likely oversimplistic.” No shit. Humans were a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition. It says something that these sorts of papers reiterating this highly plausible point continue to get published. Let’s move on.

Nope. The counterpoint to that was the casting for “The Legend of Billy Sing”, in which people of European descent have been cast in the roles of the half-Chinese Australian sniper Billy Sing in WW I and his fully Chinese father.

This is why liberals should be very careful when talking about ’sustainability.’ If it sacrifices ‘blue skies’ then the vistas become dark.

Call me a socially inept idiot, but to me this makes no sense. It’s somehow a problem to say ‘Look, unless we do this, it’s going to be crap, and there’s no other way to do things well, and odds are people are going to suffer, but this is the way that makes the least amount of people suffer’?

Here is the paper on web history sniffing, including the list of sites.

Russell

Re: Corruption. Has Bangladeshi corruption changed over time from what you’ve heard from relatives? Do corruption levels ever change for any society? I live here in Chicago and it seems that corruption is something that is talked about a good deal but is nowhere near as widespread as it used to be.

Discover's Newsletter

Sign up to get the latest science news delivered weekly right to your inbox!

Gene Expression

This blog is about evolution, genetics, genomics and their interstices. Please beware that comments are aggressively moderated. Uncivil or churlish comments will likely get you banned immediately, so make any contribution count!

About Razib Khan

I have degrees in biology and biochemistry, a passion for genetics, history, and philosophy, and shrimp is my favorite food. In relation to nationality I'm a American Northwesterner, in politics I'm a reactionary, and as for religion I have none (I'm an atheist). If you want to know more, see the links at http://www.razib.com